Forward and convert your support emails to tickets in Freshdesk

Modified on: Wed, 18 Mar, 2020 at 6:31 PM

We will be replacing the older version of Freshdesk with the new Mint experience on January 31, 2019. All your data and configurations will remain intact. Switching back to the old Freshdesk will not be possible. To read about this feature on Freshdesk Mint, refer to this article instead

This feature is currently not available on Freshdesk Mint.

This feature is not available on the old Freshdesk.

Applicable plans

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When you create a Freshdesk account, you're provided with an email address that looks like this: support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com. You can share this with your customers, and ask them to send their questions to this address. Any email sent to this address becomes a ticket in Freshdesk. The customer who sent in the question becomes the requester of the ticket.

If you already have an email like support@yourcompany.com, you can continue to share that email address with your customers for reaching out to you. But, you'll have to forward emails coming into that address to Freshdesk so that they get captured as tickets in your account. We'll walk you through how you can do this.

A quick guide on setting up your own support email in Freshdesk:

Login as an Administrator to your support portal, and go to the Admin page. From here, click on Email in the support channels section.

Freshdesk would have created a default support email and listed it in the 'Global Support Emails' section, as you can see below. This email is nothing but the one that you were shown when you signed up: support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com.

Click on the Edit button next to your default support email.

Now, provide a Name for this address (something along the lines of 'Your-company Support'). The name you provide here will be the 'From' name that your customers will see when you respond to their emails from Freshdesk.

Your support email address will also be the 'reply-to' address for all the emails you send from your support portal.

As you enter the support email, the forward your emails to text box is modified. This email is invisible to your customers. Copy this email address.

You could assign all tickets that come from your support email to any one group of agents, by choosing the groups listed under Assign to Group. This will be helpful when you setup multiple mailboxes in your helpdesk. Alternatively, you can make use of Dispatch'r rules to auto-route tickets to specific groups as well.

Hit Save.

Verifying your email address before you start forwarding:

The next step is to verify that support@yourcompany.com is indeed your email. You would have received an email from Freshdesk to support@yourcompany.com with a verification link.

Click on the verification link in the email to confirm your email address. You can also copy-paste the link into your browser. Once you successfully verify this address, you need to setup forwarding so Freshdesk can start capturing emails sent to this address as tickets

Setting up forwarding in Gmail:

If you're using Gmail or G Suite, follow the instructions below on how you can forward emails from Gmail to the address Freshdesk provided.

Click on the Gear icon in Gmail and hit Settings.

Open the tab Forwarding and POP/IMAP.

Click the button that says Add a forwarding address.fhfh

Enter the email address that you copied from Freshdesk here (should be of the form support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com) and click Next, and then click Proceed.

Gmail would now send a verification code which will be captured in Freshdesk as a ticket. Click on the link provided in that ticket that came from Gmail and you're all set. Emails sent to support@yourcompany.com will now get captured as tickets in your Freshdesk account.

Note: Since Google uses a no-reply email address the activation code often gets caught in the spam folder of your Freshdesk account.

Go back to the Settings page of the Gmail account you want to forward messages from and refresh your browser.

Select Forward a copy of incoming mail to.

Choose if you wish to Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox. (Recommended)

At the bottom of the page, click on Save Changes.

You can watch the video below for a visual walkthrough of the whole process.

Setting up forwarding in Exchange or Office 365:

Login to your Office 365 portal as an administrator. From the menu on top, click Admin and choose Exchange.

From the menu on the left, click Mail Flow.

Under the Rules section, click the '+' (plus) button and choose Create a new rule.

Give this rule a name, something along the lines of 'Freshdesk forwarding rule' for your own reference.

In the drop-down menu Apply this forwardingrule if, choose: The recipient is.

From the next page, pick your actual support email address (support@yourcompany.com) and click OK.

In the drop-down menu Do the following, choose: Redirect the message to.

Paste the email address Freshdesk provided (support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com or a similar one) and paste it in the 'check names' text box.

Now, click on the check names button label after you enter the address.

Now, click OK to leave this page, and click Save from the previous page.

While at it, ensure that your other users haven't set up forwarding rules in their own Outlook 365 accounts on the web. Only then, this forwarding rule will take effect.

Adding BCC email

The top-level management might want to know what's going on in your support without being added as agents. You can add these email addresses as BCC while setting up the support mailbox.

Quick guide on setting up BCC

Login to your support portal as an Administrator.

Click on the Admin tab.

Under Support Channels, click Email.

Click on the Advanced Settings button above the support emails listed.

Once in, click on Set automatic Bcc email link.

Type in all the email addresses you want to add as BCC, separated by commas.

Click Save and the BCC email addresses will be added right away.

You can also use your own email servers to send and receive emails if you are on the Forest plan. Learn how.

Forwarding emails from a private inbox to your support portal

Occasionally, your customers might email your support agents directly or you might have a mailbox full of emails that need to be converted to support tickets. This can be done by just forwarding them to your support email address. Tickets that are forwarded from a verified agent's email address will be created in the name of the customer who sent the email to the agent. But when you forward existing emails from a mailbox that is not associated with an agent, the requester will be set to the email address you used to forward the message and the time stamp of the ticket will be the time the email was forwarded. This feature is currently supported only in the following languages - English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Brazilian Portuguese.

Note:

If you have configured multiple mailboxes in your Freshdesk account, emails sent from one mailbox integrated with Freshdesk to another will not be converted into a ticket. For example, if you have integrated mailbox A and mailbox B with your Freshdesk account, emails sent from mailbox A to B (or B to A) will not become tickets. This is done to prevent email looping.

After adding a support email address to your account, you would have to activate it, to receive tickets in Freshdesk from that email address. Kindly follow the below steps to activate your support email address.

Go to Admin tab > click on Email

Once in, click on the Verify button corresponding the email to be activated

Copy the Freshdesk forwarding address generated for the email

Sign in to your mailbox and go to Settings ->Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Add the copied email as a forwarding address. Once you’re done, click Next.

You'll receive an activation code in the next screen. Copy the code, and paste it in your email inbox settings page, and click on Save.

Once done, click on the Next button in Freshdesk and your email will be activated.

When you create a Freshdesk account, you're provided with an email address that looks like this: support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com. You can share this with your customers, and ask them to send their questions to this address. Any email sent to this address becomes a ticket in Freshdesk. The customer who sent in the question becomes the requester of the ticket.

If you already have an email like support@yourcompany.com, you can continue to share that email address with your customers for reaching out to you. But, you'll have to forward emails coming into that address to Freshdesk so that they get captured as tickets in your account. We'll walk you through how you can do this.

A quick guide on setting up your own support email in Freshdesk:

Login as an Administrator to your support portal, and go to the Admin. From here, click on Email in the 'Support Channels' section.

Freshdesk would have created a default support email and listed it in the 'Global Support Emails' section, as you can see below. This email is nothing but the one that you were shown when you signed up: support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com.

Click on the Edit button next to your default support email.

Now, provide a Name for this address (something along the lines of 'Your-company Support'). The name you provide here will be the 'From' name that your customers will see when you respond to their emails from Freshdesk.

Your support email address will also be the 'reply-to' address for all the emails you send from your support portal.

As you enter the support email, the forward your emails to text box is modified. This email is invisible to your customers. Copy this email address.

You could assign all tickets that come from your support email to any one group of agents, by choosing the groups listed under Assign to Group. This will be helpful when you setup multiple mailboxes in your helpdesk. Alternatively, you can make use of Dispatch'r rules to auto-route tickets to specific groups as well.

Hit Save.

Verifying your email address before you start forwarding:

The next step is to verify that support@yourcompany.com is indeed your email. You would have received an email from Freshdesk to support@yourcompany.com with a verification link.

Click on the verification link in the email to confirm your email address. You can also copy-paste the link into your browser. Once you successfully verify this address, you need to setup forwarding so Freshdesk can start capturing emails sent to this address as tickets.

Setting up forwarding in Gmail:

If you're using Gmail or G Suite, follow the instructions below on how you can forward emails from Gmail to the address Freshdesk provided.

Click on the Gear icon in Gmail and hit Settings.

Open the tab Forwarding and POP/IMAP.

Click the button that says Add a forwarding address.

Enter the email address that you copied from Freshdesk here (should be of the form support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com) and click Next, and then click Proceed.

Gmail would now send a verification code which will be captured in Freshdesk as a ticket. Click on the link provided in that ticket that came from Gmail and you're all set. Emails sent to support@yourcompany.com will now get captured as tickets in your Freshdesk account.

Note: Since Google uses a no-reply email address the activation code often gets caught in the Spam folder of your Freshdesk account.

Go back to the Settings page of the Gmail account you want to forward messages from and refresh your browser.

Select Forward a copy of incoming mail to.

Choose if you wish to Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox. (Recommended)

At the bottom of the page, click on Save Changes.

You can watch the video below for a visual walkthrough of the whole process.

Setting up forwarding in Exchange or Office 365:

Login to your Office 365 portal as an administrator. From the menu on top, click Admin and choose Exchange.

From the menu on the left, click Mail Flow.

Under the Rules section, click the '+'(plus) button and choose Create a new rule.

Give this rule a name, something along the lines of 'Freshdesk forwarding rule' for your own reference.

In the drop-down menu Apply this forwarding rule if, choose: The recipient is.

From the next page, pick your actual support email address (support@yourcompany.com) and click OK.

In the drop-down menu Do the following, choose: Redirect the message to.

Paste the email address Freshdesk provided (support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com or a similar one) and paste it in the 'check names' text box.

Now, click on the check names button label after you enter the address.

Now, click OK to leave this page, and click Save from the previous page.

While at it, ensure that your other users haven't set up forwarding rules in their own Outlook 365 accounts on the web. Only then, this forwarding rule will take effect.

Adding BCC email

The top-level management might want to know what's going on in your support without being added as agents. You can add these email addresses as BCC while setting up the support mailbox.

Quick guide on setting up BCC

Login to your support portal as an Administrator.

Click on the Admin tab.

Under Support Channels, click Email.

Click on the Add BCC link above the support emails listed.

Type in all the email addresses you want to add as BCC, separated by commas.

Click Save and the BCC email addresses will be added right away.

You can also use your own email servers to send and receive emails if you are on the Forest plan. Learn how.

Forwarding emails from a private inbox to your support portal

Occasionally, your customers might email your support agents directly or you might have a mailbox full of emails that need to be converted to support tickets. This can be done by just forwarding them to your support email address. Tickets that are forwarded from a verified agent's email address will be created in the name of the customer who sent the email to the agent. But when you forward existing emails from a mailbox that is not associated with an agent, the requester will be set to the email address you used to forward the message and the time stamp of the ticket will be the time the email was forwarded. This feature is currently supported only in the following languages - English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Brazilian Portuguese.

Note:

If you have configured multiple mailboxes in your Freshdesk account, emails sent from one mailbox integrated with Freshdesk to another will not be converted into a ticket. For example, if you have integrated mailbox A and mailbox B with your Freshdesk account, emails sent from mailbox A to B (or B to A) will not become tickets. This is done to prevent email looping.